Professionalism is vital because you want to give everyone you meet, whether it’s a client, colleague or line manager, every reason to think positively of you.

Professionalism begins way before you arrive at the doors of your workplace. It begins at home by ensuring that you’re looking well-presented. Ensuring that you fit the dress code and clothes are ironed, hair is well-groomed and you smell nice all go a long way in being presentable. The usual rule of thumb for dress code is dress like your clients and then some, this ensures that your client feels comfortable around you. Being well presented is a sign of respect and professionalism to the people you will come into contact that day. As an entry-level PR practitioner, this is specifically important, this industry requires plenty of networking, and meeting new people are the crux of the industry. First impressions are vital and you want to give people every reason to think positively about you and being presentable goes a long way to ensuring that happens.

Punctuality is a sign of respect for the other person(s) time and shows that you’re able to organise yourself and your time effectively. Punctuality also allows you to have time to compose yourself before an important pitch, presentation, meeting etc. As an entry-level employee, some of these tasks can be quite daunting so it can be beneficial to arrive early and take a minute to compose yourself.

Being responsible for your own decisions and work is vital, especially in the early days. Taking accountability shows that’s you can be relied on to complete work and hold your hands up when things go wrong. People understand that everyone mistakes, but accountability sees you owning up to them and fixing them, rather than shying away. This is the type of person a client and colleague want to see, they want to see these qualities in a person that they may potentially be working with.

Being Polite and well-spoken also goes a long way, using suitable words and refraining from using slang in informal environments are just the basics. It shows that you can separate your informal life outside of work from your formal office work. As an entry-level in PR this is vital, one because you’re expected to talk to journalists on behalf of your client and two when client-facing you must conduct yourself in a formal way. Therefore, you must speak politely and well as you’re representing your company and client.

All of these points are the basis of what it is to be professional and as an entry-level are so important. According yourself by these pillars will ensure that you’ve given yourself the best opportunity possible to excel in the workplace.

Famous Campaigns

Famous campaigns is a very consumer-based PR publication, as their articles only contain content from campaigns that are targeted at consumers. I feel like their existence is just to share campaigns with people and so this makes this publication feel a lot more peer to peer like. I believe that this publication is aimed at a broad range of sectors within the Consumer PR Industry as the website has a dropdown of numerous different sectors e.g. Fashion, Sport and Technology. Famous Campaigns slogan is creativity, inspiration and brand brilliance, and that’s portrayed in the layout of their articles. Their articles are quite short, just highlighting the key messages and ideas that underpinned a campaign. This can also be told through the fact that the pictures and visuals are much more prominent on their website than any other of the websites I have researched. I feel like this publication is the one that may attract the most Non-PR related industry workers to it. I feel like the relaxed approach to its layout, language and tone of voice makes it very easy to understand. People who just genuinely have an interest in art, film or anything creative in general could have a great interest in this publication. This Is because this publication doesn’t focus on the strategic side of campaigns rather just the creative part. I think anyone outside of the PR industry would just want to see a cool and unique way to communicate a message, rather than the strategic decisions that led to them doing it.

Campaign

Campaign feels like the bridge between the two sides of the creative and corporate spectrum. The tone of voice and language feels very relaxed and, it doesn’t really use any PR jargon. The specific campaign-related articles are centred around the creative and the campaigns message, rather than the strategic outlook of some of the other publications. This specific characteristic would push this publication closer towards the creative side of PR. However, they do still celebrate those big industry wins for those within the PR Industry which pulls the campaign closer to the centre of the spectrum. Overall, due to the relaxed nature, I would say this still lies closer to creative than corporate.

Communicate Magazine

I see Communicate Magazine as an extremely corporate publication. The self-proclaimed… “single voice for stakeholder relations’” content feels very advisory-like as if written by a consultant, for a consultant. As the articles often provide advice to organisations on how they can better their current ways of working. This also made me think that this publication targets a much more senior audience; employees that hold influential positions that can affect and make those important, strategic decisions. The decisions that can affect the entirety of an agency or specific clients/accounts. Communicate’s content is very strategic rather than creative, they explore the decisions that can help underpin better campaigns. The mood of their content and general tone of voice, feel’s very top-down, as if it’s like reading a teacher’s feedback in school.

The Holmes Report

The Holmes report comes across as the most respected voice in the PR Industry. I believe that THR is there to recognise the good work of the different contributors to the PR sector, as it often reports on big agency news e.g. contract wins and personable promotions etc. This publication kind of feels like an awards show condensed into a magazine. I feel like this publication is mostly read by industry folks due to this. But indirectly, it’s also very beneficial for stakeholders outside of PR; those who are interested to see who the best performing agencies are. Due to this, I feel like people visit this publication for many different reasons. One of which is, to just browse about business-specific news but also discover new PR-related. However, I don’t believe THR are necessarily trying to target everyone, I believe that its aimed at a much more corporate and senior audience. Due to the very formal language, look of the publication and report-like feel of the publication. The tone of voice is very formal and feels extremely top-down. 

The tone of voice, length of articles and the number of industry vs campaign-related articles clearly shows which publications are aimed at which audience.